Shaving Mr Hanks

Photo: Disney

Ahoy Fannit fans! I've just got back from giving my old Twankey a burnishing in Bournemouth, in preparation for a four week run of Aladdin starting next Saturday! (Tickets available at all good websites.)

I must say, the back of that camel's giving me a bit of gyp, but such is the burden that we slebs have to bear.

And speaking of slebs, none other than my old showbiz chum Tom Hanks popped over to the clifftop mansion the other day for a spot of reminiscing about his early life on the septic isle. As regular readers of this rubbish will remember, Tom was born in Thanet while his father was serving with the USAF at Manston, and spent his formative months in Cliftonville. I must say, he didn't seem very impressed with the area, but he did appreciate the Turkish barbers in Ramsgate who relieved him of his Movember mo ahead of the gala premiere of his latest flick in Leicester Square!

And speaking of shaves, while I've been away the comments on this blog seem to have become rather unkempt, a bit like a 70s porn star's dangly bits. Dear-oh-dear-oh-dear-oh-dear-oh-dear-oh-dear-oh (Get on with it - Ed.) Quite who gives a flying twankey about the comings and goings at RAF London Kent Manston Margate Tracey Emin Maggie Thatcher Schipol International Airport, gawd knows.

And speaking of polls, I've just had one of my biggest ever! Yes, almost 200 of you voted on whether Thanet Council is fit for purpose, here's the full SP...

Question: Is Thanet Council fit for purpose?

Yes: 6% (13 votes)

No: 93% (182 votes)

An overwhelming vote there, confirming, er, what we already knew anyway.

So there you have it! Moustache now, and get on with carefully rehearsing my ad libs! Toodle-pip!

Rubbish Rubbish Collection Collection

With our lovely council's new, 'improved' system of bin collection just around the corner, my spies tell me that they're already struggling to cope with two wheelie bins per household, let alone the 4,583 bins we'll each have come November!

A reader from the grimy north of the island writes:

I want to know what happened to our bin men this morning. Everyone's bins were mixed up, are you seriously telling me a man can't take a wheelie bin from a property, empty it, and then return it to where he got it?!!!! Neighbours, including a lady pregnant with twins, have been out trying to find their own bins up and down the street. Apparently there are wide bins and skinny bins - who knew!?! I now possess a skinny one which wasn't mine before they came, but I haven't been able to get out and scour the neighbourhood for a wide-that-I-thought-was-standard-size bin!!!! HMPH!

Well that doesn't really bode well for next month, does it? Let's hope the £2,482,245 The Duffers have spent on a fleet of 15 new bin lorries proves worth it!!

Sold Down The River By Thanet Council

So, my Belgian spies tell me that defunct TransEuropa's tub Gardenia went for €750,000 at the auction in Oostende yesterday, although that price can still be outbid (by a minimum of 10% on top) until the end of the month.

And the amount Thanet Council, which is owed £3.4m of our lovely lolly by TransEuropa, will make from the sale? Nothing. Zero. Nix. Nada. Not a sausage. Because someone at the council (step forward Chief Executive and Chief Financial Officer Sue McGonigal, for it is you!) failed to secure any of the debt on the company's assets.

Would it be too much to ask Ms McG to pass 'Go' forthwith, without collecting her £200,000? Kuh!

Meanwhile, in what writers such as myself like to call a 'bizarre twist', it's emerged that as late as April this year TDC joined an EU-sponsored organisation called 'LO-PINOD', one of those Eurocratic acronyms which, in this case, apparently stands for 'Logistics Optimisation for Ports'.

LO-PINOD'S blurb states: 'Through improvements to shortsea routes, local ports and their hinterland connections, LO-PINOD encourages a wider use of water-borne transport across the North Sea Region. Greater use of local ports will re-balance Europe's transport network, reduce road congestion, aid regional development and deliver more freight by sustainable sea transport.'

It was on 17 April 2013 that LO-PINOD welcomed the Port of Ramsgate to its fold, just three days before yours truly broke the story that TransEuropa had sunk without trace, and the whole Ferrygate scandal began to unravel. Did the TDC bureaucrat who signed up for LO-PINOD not know that, within hours, there would be no more 'logistics operations' or 'freight' from the Port of Ramsgate? Or is this yet another case of our beloved council's arse not talking to its elbow? I think we should be told!

Click here to go to LO-PINOD website

Ferrygate

Following my exclusive revelation last month that TransEuropa Ferries had sunk without trace, we have now been presented with the bill by Thanet Council - a whopping £3.3m!

Yes folks, that's 3,300,000 of your English pounds pissed up the swanny, without so much as a 'by your leave'. That's your council tax, that's my council tax, that's money that should have been going towards funding decent public services in Thanet, not propping up a failing foreign business.

So what did we get for our mulah? The answer to that has to be: 'Chuff-all'. I've seen councillors on other blogs justify their actions by saying TEF was a major business that couldn't be allowed to fail. Really? Are they actually suggesting that it was a worthwhile exercise to clandestinely syphon off our money into a Slovenian firm, owned by a couple of Maltese barristers, for the sake of protecting, what, ten jobs down at the port? That's £330,000 per job!

Someone, somewhere has dropped a massive bollock. Or worse, there's been enough council collusion and corruption going on to make even a crook like Sandy Ezekiel blush. Who ordered this unlawful secret subsidy? Councillors? Council officers? Why aren't they in jail too? Wasn't Brian White, the former Head of Regeneration and Planning, in charge down there at the time? Why did he get a £70,000 pay-off for this, er, sterling work? And why was the port accountant, the only person with the bottle, experience and nouse to flag up this monumental misappropriation of public funds, suddenly sacked in 2011 and told that all the number crunching would, in future, be done at Duffer Central in Cecil Square?

In order to pay for this ferry fiasco, we are now told that, amongst other things, £1m will be taken from something called the 'New Homes Bonus', a government grant aimed at helping local authorities build affordable homes and bring long-term empty properties back into use. So to line a few pockets, people are going to lose out on much-needed accommodation. Kuh!

The whole thing stinks worse than Margate Harbour when the tide's out. I think Eric Pickles should be told!

Meanwhile, in other Ramsgate seafront news, TDC have concluded that something needs to be done about the Pleasurama eyesore, and that they're now not entirely happy with the decade and a half of dereliction they've been promoting down there. Call me a cynic, but releasing this 'good news' straight after their Ferrygate revelations strikes me as a rather obvious attempt at media manipulation.

And to be honest, it ain't all good news either, as it's going to cost us council taxpayers several more millions in legal fees to undo that particular mess. You couldn't make it up, could you?

Porridge

How I miss my old showbiz chum - the late, great, lovely, dear Ronnie Barker! So in the light of recent events I thought it only fitting to cobble together carefully craft this tribute to what must be regarded as his seminal oeuvre. Baftas and RTS Awards all round!

Bum And Bummer

Phwoar! I see Ramsgate's prude-defying hairdresser Marcello has, er, turned the other cheek!

If you recall, the top tonseurist caused a nationwide stir recently with a controversial erection featuring his lovely Cuban wife's booby bits. Now he's flipped her over and chucked up her backside!

The new look is featured in today's Daily Star Sunday (click on pic for full story). It's bound to get the old duffers at our beloved council all hot under the collar again!

Council Knockers Get Global Coverage

Talk about making a mountain out of a couple of molehills! Our beloved council must be feeling a right tit after the laughable attempt to get Ramsgate hairdresser Marcello's banner of his decouped missus taken down made headlines across the globe. Earlier this morning it was the most read story on the BBC News website! (Click on pic to watch)

Ramsgate Society's Jocelyn McCarthy says it 'shows too much cleavage', but personally it, er, perks me up every time I drive past it!

It's all rather reminiscent of Margate Borough Council's attempt to prosecute renowned seaside postcardist Donald McGill in the 1950s under the Obscene Publications Act for this:

The postcard's currently taking pride of place in a new exhibition, Rude Britannia, at the Tate. Not dissimilar to my Fannit flag in the sidebar on the right, I'd say. Harmless seaside fun. So go on Thanet Council, stop whingeing about the knockers! Take those big old pants off and wave them in the air a bit!